Awake Soon
Photography: Ivan Samkov
Daniel passes Amelia in the hallway. “You’re bleeding.” She angles her arm away from the orderly’s sight.
“Yeah, some of my stitches came out.”
“Came out? Let me see.” He takes her arm and looks at the reopened wound. “Goddamnit, Amelia! Really? You’re going to need this stitched up like now.”
“It’s okay,” she shrugs out of his grip.
“It’s not okay! You can’t mutilate yourself here, no matter what your tactics are,” he excoriates her. “Go to your room and wait for Nurse Rhonda. I’m not wasting my time with this shit. You know better.”
“Fine!” Amelia storms back to her room, gets on the bed, and waits. She lies on her back, staring at the ceiling, and requests a song. ‘Awake Soon,’ by Sara— the disembodied hands type. Sarah with an H, Amelia reminds them. Sara-h Slean. On command, the song appears, and she slips into it like familiar lingerie. Sarah’s voice is clear and clean in timbre. A singer harmonizing perfectly with herself – The brilliant lyrics – The Blue Parade album always comforted her in dark times. The singer’s voice peals like the church bells that rang hourly as she played on the railroad tracks in Rincoln, Georgia visiting her grandparents as a child. No vibrato.
Nurse Rhonda appears. An endless fermata sustains the chord in her mind. The nurse drags a chair into Amelia’s room, screeching the feet against the floor. She kicks it close to Amelia’s bed and tosses her bag on it, then glares.
“It is my understanding that you have removed several of your stitches. You should know I find it really irritating that I have to take time off my work to sew new ones,” she admonishes Amelia, who is up for the challenge.
“Isn’t this part of your job? Not my fault you don’t have good time-management skills,” she replies, sitting up.
“No, lay where you are,” says the nurse, prepping her sterile instruments and thread. “You’re right: I don’t have time. In fact, I didn’t even have enough time to get the local anesthetic.” She exposes her teeth at Amelia. “But you’re tough enough to pull out stitches; I’m sure you’re tough enough to do this without analgesic.” Amelia’s eyes are ablaze.
“I don’t need it.”
“Good,” says the nurse, “because I’m not spending a single second looking for it.”
Nurse Rhonda places the first stitch. ‘Awake Soon’ resumes while she repairs Amelia’s arm. Hanging by the teeth on the edge of a plain wooden table suspended over a desert canyon. Splintering – Frothy, foamy, loose around the gums. The stitches don’t hurt. Chris begging to have her back. Sarah inhales her own breath like warm steam – Not a single cent off. The nurse seems unsatisfied by Amelia’s calm demeanor, so she picks at her.
“I don’t understand why you people do this. You know, if you just prayed, God would heal you.” IT’S A TRAP!
“Every suicide ever is god’s fault: he gives people more than They can bear.”
The woman gives Amelia an ugly polystyrene smile. “He could fill you with the Joy of the Spirit— you just have to repent.” Amelia knows what repentance is. Repentance is showing God that you’re willing to pay for your own sins; that you don’t want to make His son a scapegoat. “Tell God that you are wicked and unworthy, and He will make you happy again.” Amelia can’t help but let her anger rise.
“I have repented. Fifty-two times. And I have the scars to prove it. I trusted God. I leaned on Him; I knelt at His feet; I pled with Him; I BEGGED Him. I lived according to His word and love. I watched others be healed while I fell at His feet, and you know what happened?” Nurse Rhonda looks unimpressed. “NOTHING.” The woman pulls the thread sharply. “If I cannot be healed by that amount of faith, I cannot be healed.”
“That’s not true,” the nurse ties off the last stitch. “God always answers the prayers of the faithful.” She snips the thread with blunted scissors. The song abandons Amelia on the last note, and her fangs pulse with venom.
“FUCK YOU, you fucking bitch! How dare you? How dare you imply that I choose to feel this way; that I somehow DESERVE the desire to slice off my feet and cut my eyes out of my face!” Nurse Rhonda gathers her equipment and starts for the door. “Yes, please, get the fuck out of here and don’t ever come near me again.”
On her way out, the nurse picks up the small trashcan in the bathroom, snatches Henry’s flowers off the shelf, and throws them in, vase and all. CUNT! Rhonda smiles smugly. “I thought I’d made it clear that you are not to have potentially dangerous items, especially now that you have caused yourself injury. Think about that.”
Chocolate Jesus
Chocolate Jesus available on Etsy through Island Girl Gourmet here.
The group prays as a washtub bass plucks in Amelia’s mind. Tom Waits’s voice scratches the ceiling of her inner ear and she can’t help but smirk in the roof of her mouth as he praises his ‘Chocolate Jesus.’ It fades when Nurse Jessica begins talking.
“Amen. Today, we’re talking about building relationships— healthy relationships.” Chris. SELFISH BITCH! “What does it mean to have a healthy relationship?” The song cuts off entirely when Amelia’s roommate starts talking with her fingernails.
“It’s not fucking assholes like Tulio; cheating lying son-of-a-bitches who screw any skank that walks by! I got back at him and they put me in here!”
Henry is game. “What did you do?”
“I keyed his car and bashed in the headlights and slashed her fuckin’ tires! And I spray-painted ‘CHEATER’ across his windshield cuz he DESERVES it!”
“And what do YOU deserve?” Nurse Jessica asks. There is a pause. “What are some qualities in a partner you think could be healthy, Jasmine?”
“Well,” the girl says, “just, like, not being a dick all the time and lying and cheating.”
“So,” the nurse rephrases for her, “honesty, loyalty, and a sense of companionship. Try saying that out loud: ‘I deserve honesty, loyalty, and a sense of companionship.’ Everyone pair up and try it. I will be John’s partner.”
Henry and Amelia pair up as Nurse Jessica sits with the comatose man. Amelia whispers it under her breath: “I deserve honesty, loyalty, and a sense of companionship.” This is so fucking stupid. But when Henry says it back, they find genuine connection in the moment. He thinks I am valuable. Look at the little spots in his eyeballs from purging. Yes. Beautiful.
Rosemary’s voice rises above the murmur. “I want what? Are you asking me for sex, young man? Well I don’t fuck brown people!” Pedro holds his hands up in the air. “I could fire you! I could fire you right now!” threatens Rosemary.
“FIRE HIM!” shouts Maxwell.
Nurse Jessica snaps her fingers. “Okay, back in the circle. Take a deep breath. Hands to yourself, Maxwell. Thank you. Can anyone tell me what we were just talking about?”
“Healthy relationships,” says Marvin.
“Good listening! Thank you, Marvin,” beams the nurse. “Healthy relationships. Marvin, what are some qualities you look for in a partner?”
“Oh, my wife is a saint. She deals with my late hours at work, the kids, and my imbalances. She’s an angel. You’d like her.”
“So: Patience, strength, and stability. Very nice.” Tom Waits goes on about unacceptable substitutes for Christ. “Henry, what about you? What are you looking for in a partner?” Amelia becomes interested, and the song fades but does not pause. Henry looks embarrassed.
“It’s hard to say… I’ve never had a girlfriend.”
Maxwell explodes with laughter, pointing at Henry. “You ARE a faggot! Goddamnit, I thought it was the Mexican! It’s you!” He collapses in fits of loud cackles. Amelia jumps to Henry’s defense.
“Fuck you, you psycho! You can’t tell me you haven’t sucked dick for drugs before!” Maxwell stops laughing and his third eyelid flashes, menacingly.
“You’re calling ME a psycho? At least I don’t MURDER myself, you fucking freak.”
“It sounds like both of you,” interrupts the nurse, “need partners who are stable, supportive, and patient. Is that about right?” After a tense moment, they nod to the nurse and sit back down. She resumes the session. “Henry, you were saying?” Harmonica solo.
“I’ve never had a girlfriend.” Henry wipes his palms on his CK flannel pants. “He’s not the only one who thinks I’m gay— my father is terrified of it. It just was never important to me. It’s not like I’m a virgin. If I want to get laid, I know where to find women. But… I want one as skinny as I am, who understands my eating disorder and maybe has one of her own. And we’re sick in the head together but we’re also competing on the scale for fun, too. I know it sounds shallow, but I can only be with a woman who weighs less than my dog.”
Jasmine’s eyes go wide, rimmed by mascara smudge. “That’s fucked up,” she says.
He shifts uncomfortably. “It’s a big dog.” Henry keeps his eyes on the floor.
“See? He IS gay!” yelps Maxwell. “He only likes girls that look like boys: NO titties on them chicks!”
Nurse Jessica returns to the topic while Waits gives advice on what to do with your savior, should He be melting on a hot day. “And what about some non-physical qualities?”
“Oh, um, I guess someone…” his eyes flick around the room. “Well, wild… and original, and… smart.”
“So: Free-spirited, unique, and intelligent.” Amelia agrees that liquified Jesus would be excellent on a nice parfait. “I think you will be successful when you start seeing women for who they are, not what they weigh.” The nurse turns to the ancient woman. “Rosemary? Why did you marry your husband?”
“Because he was rich,” she says. “He wasn’t particularly nice, but he took me to the classiest places, the classiest people, the Jazz, the LIQUOR!” Rosemary becomes more animated. “I got to live exactly the life I wanted to have and all I had to do was fuck him! Best decision I ever made.”
“So,” the nurse opens her mouth to summarize, “financial security, social availabi—”
“No, you little idiot: MONEY! All you need in this life is money!” Rosemary points to Jasmine. “You. Spic slut. Marry up.”
“Fuck you, ruca,” Jasmine says with her middle finger up. “I’m not even gonna respond with that.” The harmonica whines again.
“Eyes to me,” calls the nurse. “Thank you. Pedro? What qualities do you look for in a partner?”
“Um… Balance. And kindness and religiousness.”
“Very good,” she approves. “Amelia?”
I’m not playing this stupid game. “My fiancé just left me after being together for eight years. I hope no one ever touches me again.”
“What about down the road, when you’re ready to have a relationship?” the nurse pushes.
“I’m planning to be dead before that happens.”
“So,” Nurse Jessica says what she has been waiting to say the entire session. “Redemption. A relationship with Christ.”
“There’s no redemption for me,” Amelia cuts her eyes at the nurse. “I deny the Holy Spirit.”
Stabat Mater
Photography: Alem Sánchez
Amelia composes a Stabat Mater in her head as she sits with her father in the grubby common room.
Pro peccatis su aegentis vidit Iesum in tormentis et flagellis sub ditum /
“Daddy?” she breaks the silence. “Do you think I’m cursed? Like maybe I did something horrible in a past life and am paying for it now?”
“No, Amelia, you are not cursed. You are loved. By me and the family and your friends.” Her father looks pained. “Noah and Constance are coming next week.”
“I don’t want them to see me like this,” she resists.
Vidit cuum dulcem natum mori endo desolatum du memis it spiritum /
“They want to support you,” he says.
“I need to be left alone. I’ll settle this.” Amelia cannot deal with more humiliation within these walls.
“You NEED help,” he says sharply. “It is being given to you. Accept it.”
“It’s just the worst kind of attent—”
“It is, but that’s how things are, so you’re going to have to deal with it. What did you expect? That we’d just ignore it?”
“You’ve been ignoring it since I was twelve.”
Eia Mater, fons amoris, me sentire vim doloris facut tecum lugeam /
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean that.”
“No, you’re right. We have.” Amelia’s father takes off his glasses and rubs his bright blue eyes. “We did. I… I’ve been afraid of it since you were a child, having violent nightmares at three years old. The high I.Q., the INTENSITY. You were always so INTENSE. So smart and so funny and so wonderful, but INTENSE. And dark. I don’t know where you got that from.”
Sancta Mater, ist udagas, crucifixi fige plagas cordi meo valide /
“And I took you to church and gave you to those vultures.” He opens his hands apologetically. “I thought they could help you, and those Christian counselors you saw in high school— we thought they’d help you. I was too ignorant to know that you were sick. You just seemed brilliant to everyone. And intense. All these mistakes we made, all these red flags we ignored… I just didn’t know what to do.”
Tui nati vulnerati tam dignati pro me pati poenas mecum divide /
She has to ameliorate his regret. “It’s okay.”
Poenas mecum divide / Share the pain /
“We actually made decisions that were WORSE for you, and I’m so sorry. Those church people... You’re not bad or evil— there’s just something not quite right with your brain.” He straightens himself. “We were wrong. Mental illness is real and some people have to take medicine for it. I just didn’t think that you would… We didn’t know what to do. That’s not your fault.”
“You don’t think I’m a bad person?”
Pro me pati poenas mecum divide / So that I may share the pain /
“That God just hates me?”
Fac me vere tecum flere crucifix con dolere donec ego vixero /
“No, you’re not a bad person. And God…” He briefly steeples his fingers on either side of his nose. “Well, all this has made me think about that very hard. I can’t see any purpose in your suffering. I’ve seen a lot of suffering in my line of work and I MUST believe that, ultimately, good people are rewarded and bad people are punished.”
“But I’m being punished even though I did nothing wrong.”
Iuxta crucem tecum stare te libenter sociare in planctu desidero /
Amelia’s father shakes his head apologetically. “I don’t understand it. My god wouldn’t do that. Not a loving god. Not a FAIR god.”
“Maybe He does it for fun, like Job… or at least allows it through indifference.”
“Well things are not that black and white, Amelia. There is a whole spectrum between the two that you cannot see—”
“I think an indifferent god is worse than a malevolent one.”
Mihi iam non sis amara fac me tecum plangere / Be not bitter with me, let me weep with thee /
Amelia’s father looks at her with defeat in his eyes. “I don’t know if you’re right.”
Mihi iam non sis amara fac me tecum plangere / Be not bitter with me, let me weep with thee.
Gnossienne
Photography: Elīna Arāja
Amelia returns to the RPN’s office where the living statue requested her presence once again. The door is cracked, as last time, but the song accompanying her to the room is magnitudes better than the previous visit. Classical piano buffs her mind’s typewriter with pashmina. She opens the door and knocks at the same time.
“Welcome back, Amelia. Please sit,” says the nameless nurse. “Are you sleeping?”
“Oh yeah. Not much of a choice,” she confirms, taking a seat.
“Good.” The RPN arranges her stone body to loom over a notepad with a pen in her left hand. “This interview is instrumental in your diagnosis so please be honest; otherwise we won’t know what medication to use, which would turn out badly for you. I’ve reviewed your notes. Some of these questions you’ve already answered so keep those responses brief because we don’t have a lot of time.” Nocturne in E Minor, Op. posth. 72 No. 1 is soothing. Chopin’s very first nocturne composition. Amelia can feel the keys under her fingers— the way it makes her sway on the bench when she plays it.
“Have you ever been physically or sexually assaulted; have you experienced the death of a close loved one; have you ever ingested drugs other than alcohol and marijuana?”
“No.”
“Is it correct that you have been thinking about suicide since puberty; that your symptoms began before you started using alcohol or marijuana; that you self-injure by burning; that you are trying to starve yourself to death; that you attempted suicide by laceration?”
“Yes.”
“Is it correct that during periods when you have excessive energy you remain suicidal; that you don’t sleep; your behavior is reckless and/or dangerous; you have delusional thoughts; that you hear voices?”
“Yes, but…” The nurse looks up.
“But what?”
“I hate the term ‘voices.’ When someone tells me they hear voices, I think voices that are speaking out loud and indistinguishable from reality. I can tell they’re inside my head and not in the environment. Usually— I do have full-blown auditory hallucinations when I don’t sleep. They’re not voices like that. The best description is ‘personified intrusive thoughts.’ I call them PITs.” She stops herself, uncertain. “I’ve never told anyone about these thoughts.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because they might think I’m making things up or being difficult.”
“Are you?” Amelia responds with a morose silence rooted in E minor, just as still as the RPN. Listen to me, you psycho bitch. “You told me you heard music.”
“I hear music and voices in my mind’s ear the same way you see a giraffe in your mind’s eye when I say ‘Picture a giraffe.’ Exactly like that. Am I making sense?” The registered psychiatric nurse taps her pen on the paper as Amelia arranges the words.
“I have many conflicting thoughts, which you know is cognitive dissonance. Only, I have so many they’re practically infinite. In order to process and integrate these conflicting thoughts and feelings, I’ve personified them in my head. They don’t have names but every one of these infinite simultaneous streams of consciousness is clearly defined as having a specific source: a part of me represented by a song or a visual in the mind’s eye or a particular affective perspective.
“To be clear: this is not a ‘multiple personality’ thing. I don’t think that’s real. I think that’s Munchausen syndrome. These are just thoughts. But it helps to personify them because they are infinite. They’re on a spectrum from Gandhi to Hitler; not all female; not all human; some of them unable to speak like this ceramic figurine with no face, but all worthy of being acknowledged.” The nurse writes while the song changes, shaping Amelia’s explanation.
“Sometimes it’s like a senate: very democratic, everyone gets a turn, every perspective gets a chance. Sometimes it’s like a tee-ball team posing for a group photo: total chaos. But it helps to personify them so that I can recognize when this part of me is distracted and this one wants everyone to hold still and that one is playing with matches. Again: NOT multiple personalities. Just thoughts.”
The nurse looks up. “Do you consider this a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Many of them are delightful and helpful, particularly in creative endeavors. About twenty percent of my thoughts are problematic but I can usually manage them. Again: NOT personalities. I do not believe that I’m a different person. They’re personified intrusive thoughts.”
“Can you give me an example?”
Amelia doesn’t even have to close her eyes to see the vision clearly. “In my mind right now, I see a version of me made of moss and twigs with tiny blossoms like a moving topiary. Textured and soft and strong. Thinner than me. No nipples or sex parts but definitely a female with my face. She’s dancing to the music I’m listening to in my head right now.”
“What song?”
“Gnossienne Number Four.” The left hand is particularly difficult. “Erik Satie.”
“Never heard of it.” This stops the song abruptly.
A sailor went to sea sea sea / to see what he could see see see / but all that he could see see see / was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea!
“When you said that, I saw her wilt and dry and burn away. But she’ll resume the dance when the music picks up again, unaware of that impulse toward destruction.” Amelia briefly closes her eyes to focus. The song returns and so does the dance.
“And this plant woman is not a voice?”
“No. It’s a perspective. And I want to be that version of me. I don’t want to be angry and feel so helpless in the face of the mounting horrors in my mind. I want to grow and feel like Nature herself.” Regret at breaching the topic creeps into Amelia’s thoughts. The music determines her next sentence. “I know I’m not really a flower person. That would be psychotic – Not knowing the difference between my mind’s eye and reality.” The RPN flips to a blank page. Listen to me, you psycho bitch. There has to be a way to explain this. The piano assists.
“Think of it like meditation. People visualize environments and scenarios in which they feel calm. That’s not psychotic. I visualize environments and scenarios that stimulate me. Some people use this ability to rewrite conversations and arguments they’ve lost, or may have in the future, and that’s considered normal. I don’t try to guide my thoughts though; I just let my mind wander. I go where it leads me.”
“Where does it lead you?”
“To The Void.” The nurse writes the phrase in bold capital letters with a forceful underline before continuing. Amelia can read the upside-down words from her chair.
“What’s it like to be in your void?”
Amelia tunes into the darkness and hears movement three of Carmina Burana. “Loud. It’s like being behind the scenes at the Wonka chocolate factory: a flurry of activity. Not just copies of me but others— men, monsters, animals, apparitions good and bad. I’m cross-legged in the center of a black room while they swirl around and above and behind me. So many. So different, yet I contain them all.”
“How big is the room? Can you see anything in it right now?”
“There are no boundaries to The Void – How could there be? There are no boundaries to my perspective. I see many of me. Even the bat is there, suspended upside down in space.” The bat never says anything but he has a very judgmental face. “Copies of me are going about their days in various worlds but those overlap with The Void. Like I said: it’s like being backstage. I flip through the universes as if they’re pages in a book that I can read all at once.
“Simultaneously. Everything, simultaneous. So many so many so many thoughts. Rose tea tastes like old ladies smell. The basil we grow today likely tastes much different than the basil in ancient Rome. My fourth-grade teacher drove a yellow Corvette convertible. It’s amazing how much a haircut can change your face. Pinot grigio is best at room temperature. Blowing air horns at golfers as they tee off – War refugees – The heat death of the universe versus the Big Crunch; I’ve always favored the latter. Simultaneously.”
The RPN takes notes as fast as she can write, her hand flying across the paper while the rest of her remains still as granite. Amelia waits for her to round out her comments but the pen continues to scratch on the notepad. After a minute or two of silence, she interrupts the diagnostician.
“Can I ask you something?” The nurse’s hand pauses. “If every experience in existence were available to you, how would you choose to spend your time? Would you watch TV or is your imagination vivid enough to satisfy the part of you that wants to bathe in the Ganges? or eat a tarantula? or give the performance of a lifetime on stage, blow up the Crystal Cathedral, fuck Leonardo DiCaprio in his prime—”
“Sex with a movie star is in one of your universes? one of your perspectives does that?”
“No; sorry for the confusion. I was just curious. The universes in The Void are different from fantasies. Daydreams don’t take place in The Void. I see them in my mind’s eye but they’re… vain, as Shakespeare said. Vain fantasy.” SEW THE MOUTH SHUT!
“Maybe it’s more vain to entertain endless universes from my own infinite perspectives. Fantasies are about what you desire. My PITs are engaged in their own activities unrelated to the real world. If there’s another person involved they’re either a different me or faceless. Fantasies can involve anyone. Also, I can conjure fantasies but I can’t pick which PITs I see in The Void. I have no say. Sometimes it’s just a sun. Burning.”
The stone woman continues writing while the song changes, and another version of herself appears in her mind.
“My personified intrusive thoughts are different from the imagination I also possess. Elliott Smith’s ‘Clementine’ elicits a scene in my head just as he describes it. But I’m not involved— those are characters. The song I’m hearing now is from a film score but it’s not a movie to me; it’s a universe in which I’m made of flowers. Not the plant me I mentioned earlier. I am a flower in that I have chlorophyll instead of blood cells and stalks and stems for limbs and petals for hair, but I’m also the dew and chilly night air as well. The stars unpolluted by light. The hidden new moon. Not to be confused with songs from movies or TV that replay in my head. Those are just music videos. PITs are Me.”
“I get it. I’ve imagined myself at Hogwarts before,” the RPN says without looking up.
“It’s NEVER settings from movies. Though some universes feel magical, I’ve never envisioned myself in Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. There are dystopias but not like anything I’ve seen on screen. When I listen to that Fluke song from Matrix: Reloaded I think about sexy tribalistic dancing but not in Zion. Every song is its own universe— most songs are, but my thoughts when I’m listening to music are not like music videos.” Sew it SHUT! The kindergarteners start to squirm. Listen to me, you psycho bitch. “My point is that none of Me is a character. That’s true all around. I relate to performances but they don’t appear in my head. My PITs aren’t characters; they’re just Me.”
“This is what I’m hearing you say: infinite PITs, as you call them, live in singular universes inside the void in your mind?” Amelia nods. Close enough. “And they’re separate from you? They feel and think differently from you?”
“No; I am Me. All of us, together. One in a multitude— not separate. I am Me. Us. Them. All at once. Like white light composed of every color on the spectrum. Everyone feels differently and it sort of cancels out into numbness. But they all agree I should die.”
“Every one wants to die in every universe?”
“No one is in their universes right now; we’re all in The Void together, which is located somewhere behind my sinuses. They like to be there for important conversations. And they are all Me: as colorful as the Holi festival in India and as violent as an Aztec sacrifice.”
“So how would you define yourself in relation to these… perspectives?”
“‘Myself’ is an invention. My mind is infinite. I’m not any one of them; we are a gestalt. They are all me – Even the ones I disagree with – Even the ones I hate. And they all have opinions about each other and take sides and it’s how my mind is meant to work.” The nurse’s pen moves across the paper with a susurrus.
“I’d just like to take a moment to reiterate that these are not ‘voices’ and I don’t have a ‘split personality.’ The former is not accurate and the latter is not real. I have personified intrusive thoughts. I’m fully aware that they are just songs and thoughts in my mind and I’m not a different person when they appear.” Listen to me, you psycho bitch. You psycho bitch. Psycho bitch.
“Do they talk to each other?” Sew the mouth SHUT!
“You mean do I talk to myself? Not like some people talk to themselves; they’re just speaking a single stream of thoughts out loud. I have conversations – Vibrant, lively conversations from game shows to stonings. There are just so many thoughts to think and I have no one with whom I can share them. How would I share a stoning anyhow? I can’t ask a crowd of people to pelt me with rocks just because one splinter of myself knows I deserve to die according to the Bible. In my mind, I can die and throw stones and whip the crowd into a frenzy all at the same time. You don’t share something like that with people. It’s vivid in my mind nonetheless.” The movie track comes to an end and a Christmas song suddenly appears to bludgeon her in its place.
Jingle bells / Batman smells / Robin laid an egg
“Maybe there are not ‘parts’ of most people. Maybe people are whole and all of their opinions match up. Or they only have one opinion.”
Batmobile / Lost a wheel / And Joker got away
“It’s a strange way to think. It is. I know that. But most people make observations like animals: It’s cloudy outside. Nothing more. Smart people make inferences: It’s cloudy outside so it might rain. I’ll bring an umbrella. Creative people make references: It’s cloudy outside like that one time at the beach in fourth grade when Jennifer Robertson said I looked fat in my bathing suit.” Dashing through the snow “I just think. I just allow the thoughts to wash over me.” In a one-horse open sleigh “It is sort of a holy experience to wholly experience. Anything. But especially a reality that only exists inside your head.” O’er the fields we go
“Why did you choose to tell me?” Laughing all the way – Ha ha ha!
“I need to know if it’s normal for creatives. Or… is it common in geniuses?”
“You think you’re a genius?”
“I’m no da Vinci but, technically, yes.”
“When was that test given?”
“Two years ago. I got extra credit for helping out one of my professors doing research on I.Q. and GPA. I just figured it has to be an artist or genius thing.” Amelia waits for the nurse to stop writing. Hey! Jingle bells / Jingle bells / Jingle all the way “So?”
“It’s not. Not for intelligent creatives or anyone else.” Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh! “Now tell me which of these PITs is in charge.”
::record scratch::
“That’s like saying the first individual leaf to fall is in charge of the entire tree. We are one. For difficult choices we take a vote.” A third of them raise their hands for permission to leave The Void. She feels another song building in her brain.
“Do they ever take over?”
Just not Christmas. I’ll take musicals, commercials, hymns, pop songs – Anything but Christmas.
“That’s a simplification of what it’s like to get caught in a particular stream of thought. They no more ‘take over’ than a single molecule of water ‘takes over’ a rushing river. We’re one and the same.”
“Do they ever cause problems in your everyday life?” All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth / Goddamnit.
“Some of them. Some of the time.” My two front teeth / The tar rabbit flashes its fangs.
“Like now, huh?” Yeah my two front teeth / Amelia’s amber eyes narrow at the non-joke. “Is there anything else you’d like to add?” She shakes her head, tangles of white, red, and black hair sweeping her shoulder blades. All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth / “Thank you for telling me all of that. I’m not sure what to make of it but I’ll try to explain it to Doctor Stephens the best I can. It doesn’t seem like something you want to stop.”
So I can whistle Merry Christmas!
Stop. Stop it right now; no more Christmas songs. I’m trying to concentrate. The kindergarteners shush each other and the silent bat watches over The Void for rule-breakers.
“I don’t want to think like a normal person; I just want the emotions of a normal person. I don’t believe that having a wide, multifaceted perspective is necessarily unhealthy unless they’re all calling for my death like they are now. I want to be rid of the feelings that elicit those thoughts. My PITs don’t cause depression but different ones are prominent when I’m in that state, and I have no control over who appears.” So I can whistle Merry Christmas! The bat flutters.
“No control?” So I can whistle Merry Christmas! Attacks.
“Who has control over their mind? There is no such thing as free will.” So I can whistle Merry Christmas! Appears upside down, having lost the fight, back on its perch, nonplussed.
“Well. Let’s not get into that.” So I can whistle Merry Christmas! “We’re out of time but I’m gonna see if I can squeeze you in for another fifteen minutes before you see Doctor Stephens.” So I can whistle Merry Christmas! “We’ve been bouncing back and forth on your diagnosis and I just want to clarify a few more things.” So I can whistle Merry Christmas! “But I’m glad we talked about this today. Thank you for trusting me.” So I can whistle Merry Christmas!
“You told me to be honest. That it would help.” So I can whistle Merry Christmas!
“It will. Now go on; don’t want to miss movement therapy. Daniel will tell you what time to come tomorrow.” So IIIII caaaan whist-le… Merry Christmas!
Amelia doesn’t say goodbye; she just watches the dancing topiary turn brown and dry like a corn husk. A sculpture in wicker and rushes. Not like death – Like autumn.
Music References
Example of a Stabat Mater - Vivaldi
Nocturne in E Minor, Op. posth. 72 No. 1 - Chopin
Uf dem Anger: Carmina Burana - Carl Orff
Jingle Bells (Batman Smells) - Public Domain
All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth - Donald Yetter Gardner
You are such a gifted writer, Amelia. You always take me on the journey with you. I love it. 😊